Monday, June 13, 2011

Shoe shelving display via an Ikea hack

So the wife wanted some more shoe storage for *ahem* not her shoes, but mine! Unsatisfied with most of the storage solutions out there I came up with a plan to kill two birds with one stone. Building shelves which would take up a minimum of space and also cover up our unused ugly hallway door which has about 11 layers of paint on it (but probably a beautiful wooden door underneath!)

After some measuring, designing and number crunching we came up with a plan to cut the shelves in half lengthways, leaving a nice narrow shelf for a single pair of shoes, using the other half as an anchor for the shelves so that no brackets are needed. As you can see each piece mounted to the door also helps prevent the shelf below it from pivoting upwards;

The whole project took me around four hours, but I'm pretty pleased with the results and can happily report that the raw materials cost a mere $30!

Oh yes, and I also had to repair the door jamb first to re-hang the door;

There was a lot of sawing but luckily I have a circular saw :)

Here I am, part way through. Drilling pilot holes so as not to split the particle board (or MDF as we like to say in the UK). On the right hand side you can see the wood glue ready for the next shelf. My first couple at the bottom were a little wibbly so I used a more generous amount for the rest.

Nice. Have you opened the door with the shoes on it yet?By the way, MDF and particle board are two different things. MDF is made of wood fiber (or dust) and is much heavier than particle board which is made from chopped up wood...